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According to the definition in Associated Press, a website (or web site) is a collection of web pages, typically common to a particular domain name or subdomain on the World Wide Web on the Internet. A web page is a document, typically written in HTML, that is almost always accessible via HTTP, a protocol that transfers information from the website's server to display in the user's web browser. All publicly accessible websites are seen as constituting a mammoth "World Wide Web" of information. The pages of a website will be accessed from a common root URL called the homepage, and usually reside on the same physical server. The URLs of the pages organize them into a hierarchy, although the hyperlinks between them control how the reader perceives the overall structure and how the traffic flows between the different parts of the sites. Some websites require a subscription to access some or all of their content. Examples of subscription sites include many Internet pornography sites, parts of many news sites, gaming sites, message boards, Web-based e-mail services, and sites providing real-time stock market data.
History The first on-line website appeared in 1991. On 30 April 1993, CERN announced that the World Wide Web would be free to anyone. A copy of the original first Web page, created by Tim Berners-Lee, is kept here. Overview A website may be the work of an individual, a business or other organization and is typically dedicated to some particular topic or purpose. Any website can contain a hyperlink to any other website, so the distinction between individual sites, as perceived by the user, may sometimes be blurred. Websites are written in, or dynamically converted to, HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and are accessed using a software program called a Web browser, also known as an HTTP client. Web pages can be viewed or otherwise accessed from a range of computer based and Internet enabled devices of various sizes, including desktop computers, laptop computers, PDAs and cell phones. A website is hosted on a computer system known as a web server, also called an HTTP server, and these terms can also refer to the software that runs on these system and that retrieves and delivers the Web pages in response to requests from the website users. Apache is the most commonly used Web server software (according to Netcraft statistics) and Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) is also commonly used. A static website, is one that has content that is not expected to change frequently and is manually maintained by some person or persons using some type of editor software. There are three broad categories of editor software used for this purpose which are A dynamic website is one that has frequently changing information or interacts with the user from various methods (HTTP cookies or database variables e.g., previous history, session variables, server side variables, e.g., environmental data, etc.) or direct interaction (form elements, mouseovers, etc. When the Web server receives a request for a given page, the page is automatically retrieved from storage by the software in response to the page request, thus opening up many possibilities, including for example: a site can display the current state of a dialogue between users, monitor a changing situation, or provide information in some way personalized to the requirements of the individual user. There is a wide range of software systems, such as ColdFusion (CFM), Active Server Pages (ASP), Java Server Pages (JSP) and the PHP programming language that are available to generate dynamic Web systems and dynamic sites. Sites may also include content that is retrieved from one or more databases or by using XML-based technologies such as RSS. Static content may also be dynamically generated either periodically, or if certain conditions for regeneration occur (cached) in order to avoid the performance loss of initiating the dynamic engine on a per-user or per-connection basis. Plugins are available to expand the features and abilities of Web browsers, which use them to show active content, such as Flash, Shockwave or applets written in Java. Dynamic HTML also provides for user interactivity and realtime element updating within Web pages (i.e., pages don't have to be loaded or reloaded to effect any changes), mainly using the DOM and JavaScript, support which is built-in to most modern Web browsers. Spelling As noted above, there are several different spellings for this term. Although "website" is commonly used, the Associated Press Stylebook, Reuters, Microsoft, academia, and dictionaries such as Oxford and Merriam-Webster use the two-word, capitalised spelling "Web site". This is because "Web" is not a general term but a shortened form of "World Wide Web". An alternative version of the two-word spelling is not capitalised. As with many newly created terms, it may take some time before a common spelling is finalised. (This controversy also applies to derivative terms such as "Web master"/"webmaster".) The Canadian Oxford Dictionary and the Canadian Press Stylebook list "website" and "web page" as the preferred spellings. Types of websites There are many varieties of Web sites, each specialising in a particular type of content or use, and they may be arbitrarily classified in any number of ways. A few such classifications might include: Some sites may be included in one or more of these categories. For example, a business website may promote the business's products, but may also host informative documents, such as white papers. There are also numerous sub-categories to the ones listed above. For example, a porn site is a specific type of eCommerce site or business site (that is, it is trying to sell memberships for access to its site). A fan site may be a vanity site on which the administrator is paying homage to a celebrity. Many business websites have the appearance of s—that is, an advertisement that can be browsed around. Some websites act as vehicles for users to communicate with other people via Web chat. Websites are constrained by architectural limits (e.g. the computing power dedicated to the website). Very large websites, such as Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Google, employ many servers and load balancing equipment, such as Cisco Content Services Switches. In October of 2006, Netcraft, an Internet monitoring company that has tracked Web growth since 1995, says a mammoth milestone was reached. Netcraft reported that there are currently 100 million Web sites with domain names and content on them, compared to just 18,000 Web sites in August 1995. Prizes The Webby Awards are a set of awards presented to the world's "best" Websites. See also | ||||||||
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